My foster mother washed my clothes before I was ready

Dear Delyara, I’ve been in this house for twelve days. The woman here is nice. Her name is Marcy. She makes pancakes on Saturdays and knocks before entering my room. She keeps saying I can unpack whenever I’m ready. I haven’t. Everything I own is still in the black trash bag the social worker gave me. Two jeans, three shirts, underwear, a hoodie, and the picture of my little brother that I keep inside a library book so it won’t bend. Today, when I came home from school, all my clothes were folded on the bed. Marcy said she washed them because she wanted me to have clean things. I know she was trying to be kind. But I sat on the floor and cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. Those clothes smelled like my old house. Cigarettes, cooking oil, the laundry soap my mom buys from the dollar store. They smelled bad, probably. They also smelled like somewhere I belonged. Now they smell like lavender. Marcy apologized three times. I told her it was okay. It isn’t her fault that clean clothes can feel like one more person erasing where you came from.